Future's End Part 1
In the Future's End '' |image= |series= |production= 40840-150 |producer(s)= |story= |script= Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky |director= David Livingston |imdbref=tt0708902 |guests=Sarah Silverman as Rain Robinson, Allan G. Royal as Captain Braxton, Ed Begley, Jr. as Henry Starling, Susan Patterson as Ensign Kaplan, Christian Conrad as Dunbar and Barry Wiggins as Policeman |previous_production=The Swarm |next_production=Future's End Part 2 |episode=VGR S03E08 |airdate=6 November 1996 |previous_release=(VGR) Sacred Ground (Overall) Trials and Tribble-ations |next_release=(VGR) Future's End Part 2 (Overall) Let He Who Is Without Sin |story_date(s)= 50312.5 (2373/1996/1967) |previous_story=Trials and Tribble-ations |next_story= Let He Who Is Without Sin Future's End Part 2 }} Summary The crew is surprised by a small ship with a Federation signature that emerges from a temporal rift in front of the starship Voyager. Its pilot identifies himself as Captain Braxton from the 29th century. He shocks the crew when he explains that he believes Voyager to be the cause of a temporal explosion that would wipe out most of the Earth's solar system in his time; therefore he must destroy it. As proof, Braxton briefly states that debris from Voyager's secondary hull will be found in the remains of the explosion. Voyager fights off Braxton's attack, resulting in the future captain being sent back through the rift to Earth in the year 1967. Voyager and its crew are also pulled into the rift and find themselves also at Earth but in 1996. The starship is categorized on Earth as a UFO and videotaped, placing the U.S. military on alert. In 1967, a young hippie hiker, Henry Starling, finds the timeship and copies its technology, allowing him to create a company, Chronowerx Industries, and start the micro-computer revolution. In 1996, a young astronomer named Rain Robinson who works at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles discovers Voyager in high orbit through the ship's warp emissions and assumes it to be extraterrestrial life. Her work is funded by Starling but against his instructions, she attempts to contact Voyager by transmitting a greeting to it, which forces the crew to do some damage control. The Voyager crew tracks her location to the Observatory and Captain Janeway, Commander Chakotay, Lt. Tuvok, and Lt. Paris, decide to beam down to Los Angeles. Tuvok and Paris try to find Robinson, while Janeway and Chakotay attempt to investigate more on Henry Starling and his multimillion-dollar business. Tuvok and Paris remove Robinson from the observatory before she can be harmed after Starling, who fears that Robinson is a security risk, dispatches a hitman to kill her. In Los Angeles, Janeway and Chakotay identify a homeless man as Captain Braxton, who explains that he emerged from the time rift in 1967 and crash-landed in the desert, where a Henry Starling found the timeship and used its technology to begin his high-tech empire. Ultimately, Janeway and Chakotay discover from Captain Braxton that Starling's planned attempt to travel into the 29th century using Braxton's timeship will be the true cause for the temporal explosion in the 29th century, because Starling lacks the knowledge needed to properly operate the timeship. If Starling makes his trip to the future, the improperly configured temporal matrix will cause a temporal explosion that will destroy Earth's entire solar system. Braxton thinks that Voyager's debris will be found in the remains of the explosion because of a failed attempt to stop Starling. Janeway and Chakotay secretly enter Starling's Chronowerx office where they find the timeship, just as Starling walks in on them. Starling ignores Janeway's warning not to use the timeship since its use will cause disaster and he tries to kill Janeway and Chakotay, however the two are beamed aboard Voyager. When Voyager tries to beam up the timeship, Starling uses his own transporter beam to access Voyager's computer and study its systems before stealing the Doctor's program from Sickbay. Worse still, Voyager's presence is detected and placed on the news media since the ship's crew had to dive the ship low into Earth's atmosphere to beam Janeway and Chakotay aboard. Errors and Explanations Nit Central # Rodnberry on Sunday, January 17, 1999 - 4:42 am: Why didn't Janeway know to slingshot around the sun to try getting back to her time period? She couldn't've just forgotten, could she? She should've realized also that they came back in time only ten years after the Klingon Bird of Prey-cum-Federation starship, Bounty, did, and remembered that they slingshot around the sun to get back to their right time, and that it wasn't the first time the Ent crew did, either, and thus she should've remembered that. It should've been in their database, and who knows, probably was but goshdarnit all Janeway just plain forgot, and so did the rest of the crew, too, no doubt. Ed Jefferson (Ejefferson) on Sunday, January 17, 1999 - 7:54 am: I'm guessing Starfleet have made a program that stops people from using the slingshot thing. Aaron Dotter on Friday, January 22, 1999 - 8:50 pm: I suspect that Kirk is the only one to have used the slingshot maneuver, and after that, Temporal Investigations made up a worm program to eliminate or supress knowledge of the procedure. Just a theory. Matt Pesti on Thursday, May 13, 1999 - 1:57 pm: My Personal theory is that the slingshot effect is classified by starfleet like Omega. I also presume that the mirror universe, The early reports of the Dominion, the Ferengi and the Borg, and the Guardian of Forever were similarly classified. Anonymous on Monday, November 24, 2003 - 7:27 pm: I think Janeway refrained from sling-shoting because of the damage that the VOYAGER suffered from the pounding it got from Braxton's timeship.Seniram 12:46, January 21, 2018 (UTC) The slingshot move could also have been banned due to the stress imposed on any ship that attempts it. # Cableface on Sunday, January 17, 1999 - 1:21 pm: What happened to the Eugenics wars? The world the crew see should be a smouldering wreck , run by madmen. But, then this episode wouldn't have been as good. BUT, the admiral in Doctor Bashir, I Presume in DS9, said they did happen. Oh, what to believe..… They could have been fought as a series of localised conflicts, similar in nature to those of the Cold War. # Phillip Culley on Friday, January 22, 1999 - 10:51 am: I'm suprised no-one's mentioned this yet... but on the Chronowerx building there is a sign saying ChronowerX (emphasis mine), whereas in the time-ship bay a sign says ChronowerKS. Did Starling change his mind mid-construction? The sign in the time ship bay is painted onto the wall, and presumably cheaper that the specially built building sign. # Secondly, the ChronowerX logo looks vaguely similar to the starfleet chevron… Aaron Dotter on Friday, January 22, 1999 - 8:50 pm: According to the Encyclopedia, the ChronowerX logo is the same as the 29th century Starfleet combadge. # When Starling had Janeway's badge at the end of the episode, he tapped it as usual. Can anyone say 'dermal sensor'? Surely only Janeway can use her badge. Cableface on Friday, January 22, 1999 - 3:36 pm: The badges aren't coded like that. In one NextGen episode, Riker slaps his with a flashlight. And in possibly the same episode, he lends it out to someone else. Phillip Culley on Saturday, January 23, 1999 - 1:12 am:''but Cableface, in The Hunted (TNG) when Danar attacked the security guard, he had to use the guard's hand to activate his badge... plus in the technical manual it mentions the dermal sensor... but I agree, 99% of the time the creators 'forget' this useful security measure exists… ''Seniram 12:46, January 21, 2018 (UTC) More likely the dermal sensor is only used in certain circumstances, such as the attempt to aprehend Danar in The Hunted, possibly due to power usage issues. # Ghost of Tinky on Friday, May 28, 1999 - 5:13 pm: Here's a plot oversight that bugs me: Janeway puts Harry Kim in charge of the bridge while she's on earth. During this time, Torres is on the bridge at the same time as Kim. Kim's an ensign. Torres is a lieutenant. A field-commissioned lieutenant, but a lieutenant nonetheless. Why is Kim given command over Torres and what kind of precedent does this set? Does it occur to Janeway that Torres could always pull rank if she wanted to? How did Janeway get command of a ship without a basic understanding of rank structure? Richie Vest on Friday, May 28, 1999 - 9:29 pm: I think it was because at the time Janeway left the bridge B'Elanna was not on the bridge and therefore Harry was the senior officer on the bridge. # Keith Alan Morgan (Kmorgan) on Sunday, July 15, 2001 - 3:47 am: Braxton does an Emergency Beamout, but Starling gets to the Time Ship first. Whatever happened to door locks? This is a ship capable of time travel and we are supposed to believe that there is no security lock out to keep unauthorized personnel off it? That system could have been temporarily disabled. # How did Captain Braxton know when and where to find Voyager? He couldn't have used Voyager's records because if Voyager did destroy 29th century Earth Voyager was most likely destroyed along with it. In Non Sequitur it was mentioned that Voyager was believed destroyed in the Badlands, which would seem to be a natural choice for Braxton to look, but if he saw that Voyager was taken to the Delta Quadrant, then why did he wait so long to try & destroy Voyager? Braxton shows up at no special time or place in the Delta quadrant to destroy Voyager. If Braxton was telling the truth about believing Voyager guilty of destroying the solar system in the 29th century, why did he pick that time to show up? He probably used a surviving copy of the ship's records in the debris field to pinpoint the corect time and place. # Anonymous on Monday, July 30, 2001 - 1:17 pm: So Braxxton's ship crashes on earth in 1967. I maybe wrong but isn't this around the time that Gary Seven was on earth trying to prevent WW III from starting(see TOS Assignment: Earth)? He had access to advanced technology. So why didn't he detect this advanced timeship? Jwb52z on Monday, July 30, 2001 - 8:22 pm: Perhaps because that was not his mission to look for it? steve McKinnon (Steve) on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - 10:25 am: Seven showed up in 1968. ScottN on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - 1:50 pm: But Seven showed up to replace an agent who got hit by a car, IIRC. Cyber (Cybermortis) on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - 11:46 am: So they can train agents in advanced temporal theories and covert operations...yet can't teach them how to cross the road safely? steve McKinnon (Steve) on Thursday, August 28, 2008 - 10:12 am: True, but we never know how long the other two agents were on Earth. They may have arrived in February 1968 and Assignment: Earth takes place in October 1968. They also seemed to be based in New York, while Starling was in the southwest. Also, the agents couldn't possibly know everything that was happening on Earth or visiting Earth. Chris Booton (Cbooton) on Thursday, August 28, 2008 - 10:08 pm: Maybe the car didn't see him? steve McKinnon (Steve) on Friday, August 29, 2008 - 10:43 am: Accidents happen in a quarter-second, and there's not even time to raise your hands up to protect yourself. It was a car accident, and I thought the agents were also in a car when it happened, not crossing the street on foot. Their car may have have been broadsided, and neither agent may have been wearing seatbelts. Remember, this is 1968 and there wouldn't be airbags in their car, either. # Anonymous on Monday, November 25, 2002 - 2:26 pm: Why does Capt. Braxton end up a homeless crazy guy? Even if in fact his timeship got stolen, he's a Federation Captain, who knows enough quantum physics and other science to at least become a teacher. And he could probably invent some technology either for himself or to make some money (like the Vulcans supposedly invented Velcro). Also, why does he start telling the cops that Janeway and Chakotay are from the future? He knows that they won't believe him and even if they do, that it can pollute the timeline. ScottN on Tuesday, November 25, 2003 - 12:19 am: Braxton was sufferring major PTSS from seeing Earth and the Sol system destroyed. Category:Episodes Category:Voyager